Just One Kiss (35 page)

No
, Daphne thought harshly.  If she had had more sense, if she hadn’t done anything, then Edward would have married his dear Miss Winston and she- she would have lost him forever.  She would have been married off to some bland, nice enough, gentleman who could never make her heart sing
,
who could never make her soul shatter.

“I had a strange feeling when I came home that I might find you in here.”  A soft voice murmured from the doorway.

Daphne choked and spun on her heel, turning around, and coming face to face with her husband.  “Edward, I’m sorry!” she blurted immediately.

“Sorry?” he echoed her, cocking a puzzled eyebrow.  “Sorry for what?”

“You know what,” Daphne whimpered, clenching her eyes shut so that she wouldn’t have to see his face as the pain of the memory broke over him.  “I didn’t mean for it to happen like it did!” she continued breathlessly, her words tumbling over each other in their hast
e
to finally be heard.  “I didn’t mean to force you!  I never thought that we would be caug
ht,” she cried.  Edward nodded. That was all. H
e just
nodded
at her.  “
Well?” Daphne croaked, needing to
hear him say
something
.

“I know that,” he muttered, looking down at his foot as he kicked at the carpet.  “I think perhaps I always did, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

“W-why not?” Daphne stammered, licking her lips anxiously.

“Because it would have made me ask too many awkward questions of myself.”

“What- what do you mean?” Daphne asked slowly.  “What questions?”  She looked up into his face, reading the hesitation and the uncertainty that was gathered there, but she still needed to know the answer.  “Edward?”

“You were sixteen, Daff.  A child.  You didn’t know what you were doing, or understand the consequences of your actions,” he shrugged gruffly.  “But I should have- I did.”

“But you- you didn’t do anything,” Daphne puzzled.  “I came up here to find you.  I- I-” she blushed crimson, but couldn’t force the words out.

“You kissed me,” Edward said simply.  Daphne glanced at him closely, trying to read his face, because there was
something
in his voice, and it wasn’t disgust or disapproval, it was hot and shivery, and it almost sounded like it could be desire. 

“But that was me-” Daphne started to say again, but Edward interrupted her before she managed to finish.

“And I did nothing to stop you,” he murmured thickly.

Daphne licked her lips uncertainly. 
Well, that had been because he had been too shocked to move and push her away… hadn’t it? 
Daphne asked herself shakily.  “There wasn’t… really time for you to do anything though,” she mumbled weakly, desperate for Edward to explain himself further.

“Maybe I didn’t want there to be time though,” he growled difficulty.  “Maybe I didn’t want to stop you at all.”  He took a step forward, and Daphne instinctively took one back.  Edward seemed so large, so powerful all of a sudden, whatever it was that was threatening to bubble to the surface was about to break free, Daphne was almost certain of it.

“Please, don’t tease me, Edward,” she whispered, backing all the way across the room, her husband following her every step, until she bumped into the windowsill and was forced to stop.

“I’m not,” he rasped, his voice coming out slightly strangled. 

Daphne gasped sharply and then she twisted away from him, casting her gaze out of the window so that she wouldn’t have to look up into Edward’s face.  What did he mean?  What could he mean!  She tried to concentrate on the horizon, on the low dark overcast sky.  It would rain soon, maybe even thunder, Daphne tried to keep her thoughts on that, on the mundane; she was afraid of the prickle of wild hope that Edward was stoking.

“I dreamt about you that night, Daff,” he breathed, standing so close that she could feel his words puffing, warm and insistent, against her hair.  “Before you burst into my room, I was thinking about you.” 

Daphne felt her spine stiffen.  “That can’t be true,” she argued shaking her head stiltedly.  “You weren’t-”

“I was thinking about you,” Edward argued firmly, his arms slid persuasively around his wife’s waist.  “I was thinking about how much you had changed from the gangly little girl I’d grown up with,” he whispered into her ear.

“Edward!” Daphne exclaimed, wrinkling her nose at being called gangly, but anything else she might have said was lost when her husband continued.

“You were so beautiful, so perfect, I wanted you.”

Daphne was sure that she stopped breathing.  Edward could
not
have just made that confession!  She spun around again, this time to face her husband… only… she didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t even know how she was feeling- so she tried to work that out at least… anger, that was definitely part of it, and betrayal, but also a terrifying sort of hopefulness, that maybe she hadn’t been such a fool after all, maybe she hadn’t misread him so very badly. 

However, it was anger that simmered to the surface first.

“Wanted me?” Daphne heard herself hiss.  “You left me!”

“You were sixteen, Daphne!” Edward barked back, as if this explained, if not everything, then at least something.  “Why couldn’t you have waited?” he demanded harshly.

“You were going to marry Miss Winston!” Daphne wailed.  “I didn’t have time to wait!”

“I was not going to marry Miss Winston,” Edward snorted.  To which Daphne gasped again, and this time looked faintly
scandalized
.  “Well, maybe I
thought
about it,” he growled.  “But then I saw you again and-”

“Are you making this up?” Daphne blurted suspiciously.  Edward looked like he wanted to throttle her all of a sudden, but Daphne pressed on regardless.  “I think that it’s rather cruel of you if you are,” she sniffed.  “Because-”

“Damn it woman!” Edward snarled, clamping his hands on her arms and dragging her against his chest, probably meaning to intimidate her by the sheer masculine size of his body, but only actually succeeding in fiercely increasing Daphne’s heart rate.  “I’m trying to make you understand-”

“That you wanted me so badly that you left the country for six years?” Daphne snorted inelegantly.

“Yes,” Edward hissed.  The tiny word hung ominously in the air between them.  He moved one of his hands from her arm to the small of her back, crushing her against the hard planes of his body.  “I wanted you, but I was furious with you.  Do you have any idea of what that might have meant for you?” he growled, suddenly pulling Daphne away from the window, dragging her towards the bed.

“Edward, no!” Daphne gaped.  He couldn’t mean to-!  Not
now
surely, not when they were both so clearly smarting from old, unhealed wounds that the will to lash out at the other was painfully strong.

“Daphne, yes,” he rasped.  “You think that love is only good and pure and kind, but it’s not, it-”

“You don’t know what I think!” Daphne railed.  “I know that my love for you became my curse!  It almost destroyed me, Edward,” she cried madly.  “But I made myself strong again- so strong!  And then you- you sauntered back into my life and- and-”

“And?” Edward demanded, his lips quirking arrogantly.  Daphne saw red.  She raised her hand to slap him, but Edward’s soldierly reflexes were far too fast for her to be able to inflict any damage.  He caught her wrist, hard enough to elicit a small gasp from
his wife, and then
he kissed her.

At least, Daphne supposed that it would have to be termed a kiss, but it was like no other kiss that she had ever experienced before!  Edward’s mouth was cruel and bruising in its force.  He didn’t ask - he took, breaking through the seal of her lips ruthlessly and then sweeping into her mouth. 

Daphne pushed hard against Edward’s chest, but he easily ignored her token effort to escape, ensnaring her tighter in his arms as she struggled, and then quickly admitted defeat, hating the way that her body betrayed her.  The swirling heat of desire was building in her womb, throbbing to life against her will.

Why fight it?
  She wondered bitterly. 
Why not use it? 

Daphne raised her hands to Edward’s head, twining her fingers roughly in his hair, drawing from his lips a low grunt of pain.  Perhaps she couldn’t stop him from doing what he intended, but that didn’t mean that she was going to let herself be his victim again.  She felt his jolt of surprise when she started to kiss him back, matching his ferocity step for step.

“Don’t,” he growled, his voice thick and husky.  “Don’t push me any further, Daff,” he warned gutturally.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she panted, tauntingly, scratching her nails down the back of his jacket, wishing that she could do the same to his bare skin.  She wanted him marked.

“Perhaps you should be,” Edward groaned, running his hands heavily, possessively over her body, fondling and groping her tender curves.  Daphne was almost ashamed of the way her body instantly responded to his selfish
advances
…
almost
.

“I won’t be made to feel afraid,” she hissed daringly, unsurprised, but electrified.

“Why not?” he deman
d.  “I am,” he groaned, claiming her lips again to silence her.  “I could break you.”

“Try,” Daphne dared him, “Try and break me,” she goaded him.  “I’m not as weak as you think.
I want you to show me this darkness, because it can’t be any worse than what I’ve lived through without you!”

She gasped as Edward cursed, “What do I have to do?” he
begge
d.  “What can I do to make you forget?”

“Nothing!” Daphne spat back.  The raw pain in his eyes made her try to shrink away.  “But I might be able to forgive,” she breathed quietly, only Edward didn’t appear to hear her, or if he did then it didn’t seem to help.  The hurt didn’t leave his eyes.

“Then I’ll have to learn to live with that,” he rasped.  “And given that you already hate me, there doesn’t seem to be much more point
in
continuing with this charade, does there?” he
aske
d, his piercing gaze boring down into Daphne’s eyes.

She tried to
swallow the lump in her throat.
“W-what do you mean?”

“Do you want me, Daphne?” His hands stole beneath her body, cupping her bottom and
pulling her closer.  “Do you want this? O
r do you want to go home to Dunnely and your brother, where everything
is
safe and bland, and you don’t have
to
take any risks
?”

“
I want
you,” she whispered, feeling as
though she had just come up from under water for the first time in years.  “I always have.”

Edward froze as Daphne’s confession washed over him.  All of his bravado failed.  “Daphne…” he breathed weakly, but his wife didn’t let him finish.

“You don’t have to say anything!” she blurted swiftly.  “You just have to know
that I love you.
”

“I thought you’d stopped,” he said softly, his voice thick with wonder.

“I stopped liking you,” Daphne sniffed, “I never managed to stop loving you though,” she whispered, a few embarrassed tears spilling out from under her eyelids.  Edward caught them with his fingertips, before kissing them away.

“I never deserved your love before,” he said, in a tone of voice that might have been saturated with self-loathing.  “But now I’m determined to be worthy of you, Daff,” he growled firmly.

Daphne chewed her lip and looked pained.  She didn’t want him to be worthy of her, although she supposed that would be nice, she just wanted him to love her back!  Edward was evidently incapable of
that,
or surely he would have said something by now
?